The Parachute Regiment - The Gen

[Chapps]

P-Coy has long been regarded as a tough course and the thing that separates the Parachute Regiment from the rest of the British army.

However, is this is true?

Well, as P-Coy (Pegasus company, for those that didn’t know) is a test of fitness, stamina and mental ability to overcome physical barriers, and as only the Paras carry out this selection as part of their basic training, it sets them apart from other line regiments.

Is that it then, P-Coy = Para

No, this is a myth. The parachute regiment are not regular solders that transport from bases to battlefields, they are soldiers that are required to perform their duties within an 'unconventional arena'.

For those of you that have not parachuted from a C130 Herc, you should know that it is a very tiring experience (to be compared to sport parachuting only when comparing formula 1 racing to commuting to work) – in fact its the equivalent of 8 hours work, and as there is no rear echelon to supply or reinforce a DZ.

What you jump with you carry, what you carry you can use – water, food and luxury items all make way for the essentials of ammunition, 7.62 link, mortar rounds, Anti Tank rounds, claymores & radio batts will weigh heavy but need to be carried by all.

Therefore, when in the field, potential para reg soldiers are shown why during a 3 minute break, 2 minutes are spent cleaning your weapon and 1 minute ramming some brown biscuits down your neck for scoff. And when leaving a platoon harbour area, its down to each individual to show complete professional behaviour in carrying all his waste (wrappers/ scoff cans/ string etc) and not leaving it behind or burying it like crap hats do !

– the reason is because parachute regiment soldiers must perform that much better in the field in order to survive and do the job.

P-Coy is the start of standards in fitness and a test of whether an individual could go low level in a plane for 4 hours, carry out a parachute jump, tab 20 miles to the battle filed carrying 120lbs and fight for 8 hours at the end of it.
But basic and advanced Wales will set standards in field craft, that will be expected to be shown up in the battalions, where 'bad skills' are punish with a GPMG butt in the face.

This is the reason that other regiments do not / could not transfer to a parachute regiment battalion after passing P-Coy, because it is depot (whatever it is now) as a whole that is the course, not just pre-parachute selection.

For my part, when it comes down to it during an advance on a enemy position, I would only feel comfortable with a Royal Marine on my right flank, I’ve seen to many craphats mincing around with their pouches undone and generally demonstrating lower standards of soldiering, equivalent to a TA Tosser, to feel that they would not cut it in a 8 hour fire fight. Sierra Leone was such an example of poor soldiering, and it took Para Reg and 22 to sort it out.

[adj125]

[

[pezmod]

So what are you saying Chapps. That Regiments like The Coldstream Guards, The Blackwatch, Royal Green Jackets, Royal Regiment of Wales and other fine Infantry Regiments are crap, rubbish, not worthy of a SUSAT on there rifle and can't do there job properly. I don't think so.

I've met stuckup Paras before when I was in a craphat Infantry Regiment. Giving it the big one, looking down at there noses at us. And nearly always they ended up with egg on there faces. I've also come in touch with Royal Marines in the past who always acted friendly and treated us with respect as fellow Inantrymen. But you know what they say 'the best don't brag'. And the ones that do are trying to proove something.

I can remember serving in Northern Ireland and our Company and to replace a Para company for 3 weeks while they had leave. The year was 2000 and it was somewhere in South Armough. Of course as the change over was taking place we had the normal Para Reg atitude. Sly remarks, would'nt talk to us, you know real childish stuff. One even called us REMF's which was funning as we were doing the same job as them. Anyway to get to the point one of the RUC men told a couple of us that they all agreed that we came across more professional, our skills and drills were better and we seemed to have better personalities.

So Chapps don't slag of the Line Regiments because they have been around alot longer than you. And if anyone from my old Regiment (Worcester and Sherwood Foresters) was caught with pouches undone they would get a quick fist in the chest.

All I'm saying Chapps is we all know the Parachute Regiment is afine Regiment. Maybe they are the best, but they is more to being a Riflemen than just fitness alone.

[adj125]

I've met stuckup Paras before

I doubt he is even a Para let alone a stuck up one

[Chapps]

It wasn’t my intention to get into a slagging match with my posting, I was looking to give some advice, to what appears to be a lot of young lads visiting this forum and talking about stuff totally irrelevant to what the regiment really wants in a potential recruit.

The only contact with the army, as a whole, for most of them, will be some fat waste of space sitting behind a desk at the careers office – they are not soldiers just REMF clerks.

I can see that my last paragraph might have been proactive, but this was just to clarify my position as to why the regiment is was it is – not just fit soldiers but soldiers potentially having to work in a totally separate theatre of war, this is what depot is (was) all about.

As for your points; I have been out of the regiment for many years and most of my mates are either out now or senior ranks, but I refuse to believe any NCO in the regiment would allow a training area to be left with crap lying around – a MacDonalds, yes – training ground, no.
What ever you might think about Para Reg, they are a proud bunch of lads with high standards in every thing they do. They have had to work harder to accomplish there basic training and would have been able to Jack at any time and transfer elsewhere, had they wanted.

As regards 3Para adj125 , if what you are saying is true then I’m sure there was plenty of beasting sessions after the poor standard of section attack – I seem to remember that 3 Para came back from a 3 year residential tour in Belfast in the 90’s prior to Kenya, so this might have been due to lack of ‘real’ soldiering practice.

Part of the problem with the Regiment now is that there is little in the way of quality recruits coming through, like there were in the 70 and 80s, as a result many new blokes are coming up and not being ‘dealt with’ by senior toms that have had 6 – 8 years in the same company.

Many of these new blokes then settle in without having been adequately assimilated into the ongoing ‘anti f@#k-up stress mode’ required of new blokes - and can f@#k up with their drill etc because they have only been around for 6 months.

When I came up to battalion in the 80’s I slept in a room with 3 other guys that had occupied that same company (and probably the same bedspace) for years, as a result I had a quick assimilation into the way things were, when all 4 new blokes to the company were lined up and told we were ‘gobby crows’ before being beasted around the corridor and having our kit chucked out the window. On my first Battalion exercise, which just happened to a battalion exercise, one of the new blokes I came up with was hit in the face my a GPMG butt for waking up an old sweat 5 minutes early for stag – these were the standards outside bedblocks and bullshit of depot that were important in the lines.

Pezmod, I’m not saying that all members of these regiments can’t march well and I would not wish to deprive them of a SUSAT, for that matter they can have Para Reg’s and we’ll get something that’s functional for a battlefield – you can take that sh*t new pattern webbing and Bergen as well.

The Parachute Regiment is the most prejudice in the British Army, as they hate everyone that is not in the regiment. For the record, my dislike is, and always has been in this order-

Fat Civvys who don’t have a fu**ing clue, but proceed to talk about the military, Big Time TA Tossers, that talk to me like they think they are ‘in’ and ‘know what its like’, Craphats with bad skills and low standards, Yank 101st 82nd who regard themselves as the same -F**cking clockwork, unfit wa**ers who steel your kit, Royal Marines who spend to much time down the Gym with no real aggression and can’t drink.

Durng my time I have worked with alot of Regiments and found one or two of them to be of a decent standard, including the marines - who are as about as different to the Reg as you can get, but field craft wasn't bad when I was working with them in NI, but there are those that are appalling. During the 80’s I was in NI when we were being given transport by the residential battalion, with some craphat on top cover, I saw what I thought was a potential threat of some kid with bottles, I told the guy on top cover to get his ARG down the range but he didn’t hear me and as a result we got hit by a sh*t load of milk bottles and bricks. When I looked at this guy he had earphone in his ears – this is what I mean by craphats.

Remember that it was the Para Reg that won the 2 VC’s during this countries’ last full on engagement – and we are still very proud of that fact. Additionally, during the early 80’s 22 were tasked to carry out a feasibility study for an OP in NI, they came back saying that it could not be done, 3 Para tabbed out there the next day and did the OP and got the int. This didn't make the civvy news or the telex but was still a mark of how airborne aggression can win the day.

Things may very well be different now as to what they were when I was in - but antill there is a re-run of the falklands again there will never be a real test of the Regiments ability. Although we came close when during 1990 1Para were on stand-by to jump in to the desert to as part of a rescue plan for the hostages NBC black I think - but it never happened.

[pezmod]

Come on Chapps.
Surley an ex regular like yourself knows only to well that the harsh treatment of Gobby Crows, the beatings for f@^"ing up, and of course getting a riffle butt in the head for wakeing up a senior lad 5 minutes early for stag. Happens in ever regiment in the British Army.

[sp10122]

I would say I am in more of a 'select' elite than they are yet bcause I didnt have (thier) wings I was talked down to but I don't beat my chest at how good I am at soldiering.

You go on patrol and compare the Paras to other line regts. These blokes are stagging on for 2 years at a time whilst the Paras are doing Iraq, Afghanistan and so on. The guys would love to be doing those jobs. Yes, the fitness is better but in terms of soldiering (common sense, ability, individual thought, skills) I'd say the guys I was with had the edge and in that sense were better soldiers. My soldiers would not have looked down their nose at anyone and i must agree that the comments about Royall are right. You can all tell each other how good you are at soldiering but that's not where it counts.

[chunky from york]

Chapps,


How do you square the glider borne elements of the war time Airborne Forces. One volunteered to do the parachute course; but the glider people paraded one morning to be told 'you are no longer Light Infantry, you are Airborne, draw a red beret after NAFI break'

I have seen a glider and it is just a collection of metal tubes covered in Irish Linen and painted olive green. I can only imagine the courage needed to go to war in one of these contraptions. But they were not Para Reg, so craphats ???

[rabby]

I am in more of a select elite than they are yet bcause I didnt have (thier) wings I was talked down to but I don't beat my chest at how good I am at soldiering.

Yes, the fitness is better but in terms of soldiering (common sense, ability, individual thought, skills) I'd say the guys I was with had the edge and in that sense were better soldiers. My soldiers would not have looked down their nose at anyone and i must agree that the comments about Royall are right.

What is your select elite of better soldiers?

[Sisyphus]

No, this is a myth:

But basic and advanced Wales will set standards in field craft, that will be expected to be shown up in the battalions, where 'bad skills' are punish with a GPMG butt in the face.


equivalent to a TA Tosser.

Sorry to 'edit' your post but the bit in italics is, well

As for the TA tosser, you might not have heard but one of these 'tossers' recently lost his life doing his duty for his country in Iraq.

Get a grip of yourself, laddie

[COMBAT WOMBAT]

My grandad was in the glider airborne in WW2, he could do 50 press-ups into his 60s. He once landed behind enemy lines and most of his unit were killed including his mate having his head blown off by a sniper. He is not aggressive or a complete stuck up tosser, so don't slag him off anyone please.
Anyhow, just out of curiosity, apart from the agressive fight at the drop of a hat attitiude of the paras can anyone please tell me how they despite their exertise and ability have become one of the most hated units within the entire british armed forces?

[COMBAT WOMBAT]

oh yeah, also, Chunky, in answer to your question about the amount of courage the glider troops must have had, my grandad has always suffered from vertigo so badly that he can't even climb a ladder to clean his windows.
P.S. the light infantry unit he was in is no longer a para type unit, it became part of the Royal Gren Jackets

[Sisyphus]

Anyhow, just out of curiosity, apart from the agressive fight at the drop of a hat attitiude of the paras can anyone please tell me how they despite their exertise and ability have become one of the most hated units within the entire british armed forces?

There is no other reason. But there are plenty of paras who are first class soldiers and first class blokes. It's just the idiots who bring the Regiment into disrepute.

[chunky from york]

Combat,

That was my point people from standard Light Infantry units were ORDERED to be glider troops they did not have the luxury of volunteering.

But to my mind they were a damned sight braver than people who volunteered to be parachutists.

I would much sooner make a night parachute descent with equipment than go up in a glider.

Yet although they wore a red beret they weren't Para reg, so would they be classed as 'crap hats' ????

[Topper]

Talking of glider troops, once at an airshow when i was being shwon around a Bucaneer, the owner pointed to the bombay and stated that the TA SAS were to be infiltrated behind Soviet lines in bombays of Bucaneers in time of a Eastern invasion of West Germany and Central Europe. Don't know how true it is, but struck me as being hair-raising none the less.